The Teaching Center at Belmont provides a number of opportunities for faculty to come together to read and reflect on books related to teaching and learning. Specifically, the Teaching Center organizes three types of reading groups: Belmont Applied Teaching and Learning (BeATLe) book groups, reflective book groups, and summer reading groups.

BeATLe groups are encouraged to read a particular text and then apply ideas from the reading to the classroom. Groups are also encouraged to explore the potential of SoTL projects related to the reading and corresponding implementation. For the fall 2017 semester, BeATLe groups are reading and applying ideas from Saundra McGuire’s Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate Into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation. Dr. McGuire led the August 2017 Teaching Center workshop entitled Student Learning, Motivation, and Mentoring: Metacognition is Key!

In addition to BeATLe groups, the Teaching Center regularly offers additional reading groups in both the fall and spring semesters. These groups encourage a reflective approach to teaching and are often offered in September and February. This semester groups are meeting to discuss The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction by Belmont’s First-Year Seminar common speaker, Matthew B. Crawford.

The Teaching Center also offers reading groups each summer. These groups read a wide variety of books both directly and indirectly connected to teaching and learning. Here is an excerpt of a reflection from one of the participants in a 2017 summer reading group:

I so appreciated the opportunity to read The Road to Character by David Brooks. I am also grateful for the specific time and energy the Teaching Center invested in coordinating these reading group discussions. The book was certainly an encouraging and refreshing summer read for me—as it reminded me to be intentional about the ways I navigate my days and the space that creates (or doesn’t create, sometimes) to develop more grounded dispositions and practices in my life.

If you have any questions about book groups offered by the Teaching center, please don’t hesitate to contact us.